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I feel like that construct, sometimes called "double-null terminated", is often inaccurately described.

I prefer to think of it as a contiguous block of null terminated strings terminated by an empty string. (Just as '\0' terminates a C string, the empty string terminates such a list.)

Multi-strings are also pretty common in the registry, see REG_MULTI_SZ.

That reads like one of the instruction mnemonics from https://twitter.com/x86instructions

>SHFILEOPSTRUCTW

now that takes the cake

Nah. That would be INITCOMMONCONTROLSEX. And the related LVM_SORTITEMSEX, DDSCAPSEX, and of course MPR_CREDENTIALSEX_0.

With Microsoft's use of ALLCAPS and using an "Ex" prefix, this was all but guaranteed…

How about SHITEMID in the shlwapi DLL? That's supposed to be SH-ITEM-ID.

if someone ever figures out the meaning of that phrase it's probably going to summon some cosmic horror that will be the end of us all

I've had some interesting experiences with SHFileOperationA on Wine. Star Citizen's updater wasn't working properly at one point due to it.